The Revolution twins

The Revolution twins, Joseph and George Mothiba, are back with a new release in time for the festive season, but this time round it’s a special CD set.

Entitled Revolution 10, this album is a celebration of Revolution being in the industry of a decade.This time around they bring you a double deluxe with the album having two disks: the first one only containing new songs which include the much played song ‘Without You’ and on the second disk, the twins take you down memory lane with 11 of their previous hits that made the boys from Alex (with roots in Limpopo) supremely in the house genre.

Looking back on it, these guys can be seen as pioneers of the local Afro house scene what with their collaborations with Afro Jazz and World Music greats like Philip Tabane, Andy Brown, Jimmy Dludlu, Pops Mohamed and McCoy Mrubata. With hits like ‘Diphala’, ‘VhaVenda’, ‘Diphala’, ‘Zim Connection’, ‘Feel The Music’ and ‘Paradise’, this duo have kept their fans dancing consistently over the years.

“It’s been really incredible being in this industry and on this album we celebrate and thank our fans who have supported us through out this time, there is a song titled ‘Realeboga’ on the album, we made that song for our fans.” says Joseph.

I met up with the 32-year- old twins at the Outrageous Records studios to get a taste of what they have been cooking up and needless to say the boys were very comfortable in the studio, like George said “When I see a studio I just want to make beats…” As they filled me in on what their company Foursounds Productions has been up to, I got a sense of how much these brothers really do eat, sleep and breathe music.

In celebration of 10 years in the industry, you released an album two weeks ago, tell me about the album.G: The album is a celebration of us being in the music business for 10 years hence it’s titled Revolution 10, it’s a double CD album. The new tracks are on the first disk and on the 2nd disk we take you down memory lane, from tracks that we did back in 2000 and other tracks that we’ve featured on our albums. The album is too nice in fact, it’s just good music at its best.

Who did you work with on it?J: We worked with a whole lot of guys in this album, we worked with a guy (Kora player and singer) called Noumoukounda from Senegal on a track called ‘Cherie Nata’ which means ‘Lady come to me’ in Senegal’s language Wolof. We also worked with the singers Khethi, Daddy, Mahalia, Candy and Shandu just to name a few. We featured a lot of people on this album…

And how long did it take you to finish the album?G: It took us about four months to do the whole album and some tracks that we included on it are tracks that we did last year and we just put them on the album. So it took us a bit of time because we wanted to produce something really good for the people and we believe we were able to do that.

Did you produce all of the songs in the album?J: Yes we produced all of the songs, we do everything ourselves, we manage ourselves, we produce like we said, we do everything! So everything that is Revolution is us.

How is this album different from your other albums?G: This album is different in that you can sense that there is growth musically and also the sound is different, we experimented with a lot of sounds and have also worked with a lot of producers to give it the sound that it has now. We’ve played with a lot of tribal music and mix it with our own flavour.

Which song do people like the most in the album?G: People are loving almost all the songs in the album but it differs with provinces for instance in Limpopo they are enjoying the song called without you which Daddy is featured on and in other laces they are playing the song fantasy more but almost all of our songs are being played.

Your album celebrates 10 years of Revolution being in the music industry, what has it been like to be in this industry? The highlights?G: It’s been really incredible I have to say, though we started doing music a long time ago while we were still in school but we officially got into the industry and released our first album in 2000. I would have to say the highlight would be going to different countries playing at gigs and people really dancing to our music. That alone has been the highlight but of cause meeting different people in music has been overwhelming, we have met people that we thought we’d never meet and seen places that we thought we’d have set foot in…

J: Its been such a blessing to work with people like Jimmy Dludlu, people who have been in the industry for over a century, so in all its been really great, we have enjoyed it a lot and we are still going to do more and enjoy everything more.

What has kept you going for such a long time while other DJs or musicians fail to reach 10 years?J: I would have to say that it’s our fans that have kept us motivated and in that they make us want to produce good music and stay in the business. Also the love that we have for music, we always making music at home and this thing is in our blood. The drive to keep making more music is the one thing that has kept us going and not just producing music but producing good music that people love.

Who has been your inspiration since starting out? G: A lot of people inspire us, we can’t focus on one person, no matter what type of genre there is, if the music is good and the artist or DJ is good we will get inspiration from that. But its people like Oliver Mtukudzi, Jay Hlungwani and more that we look up to.

Apart from working on this album what else were you doing?We were working on Maduvha’s album and also worked on some other projects, Jimmy Dludlu’s remixes, and we also worked on DJ Sbu’s album so we’ve been really busy.

How would you say SA house music has grown from when it started years ago?G: It has grown tremendously because now there are different types of house music; you find that there is deep house, electro house and the more upbeat type of house. So since it first started it has grown a lot and is still going to grow. At the moment house music in S.A is the leading one amongst other genres.

So do you think cds are selling as much as they used or there has been a change?J: there has been a change definitely because of technology people have been downloading songs rather than going to buy CDs and that could be the reason, also the recession has hit everyone hard and not only that but there are a whole lot of factors that have led people not to buy CDs. I believe that if your music is really good than people will buy your album because they enjoy your music and in that they will want you to keep producing more albums.

So apart from music what do you guys like doing?J: We don’t do anything else except music, we live, eat and breathe music. That’s what we like doing and if we could we would do it everyday of our lives. We both have our own studios where we work whenever we want to, so music is our thing.

Your favorite hang out spots?G: The studio! Like we said earlier that’s where we like to chill and unwind.

You look exactly the same, what sets you apart from each other, the differences?G: We don’t have any differences, we are alike in everyway. We enjoy the same things, we are both technology freaks and we enjoy each others company, as much as we are brothers but we are also best friends as well and which is why we decided to move in together because we are always together so it only made sense to do so.

And lastly, what can you tell people that will make them go and buy the albumJ: If you’re serious about music, Revolution 10 is a must have for your collection!